Big Springs celebrates Red Ribbon Week

Wednesday

Oct 30, 2013 at 12:55 PM

Kevin Dickinson

Big Springs Elementary School combined education and entertainment Tuesday, celebrating Red Ribbon Week's antidrug message with the students while demonstrating the new Common Core Standards Initiative for teachers.

Antidrug MagicInviting neighboring schools to participate, Big Springs' Red Ribbon Week assembly featured magician and motivational speaker Tim David. David traveled from Massachusetts to perform his show, which Big Springs Principal Jim Pindell described as mixing magic with psychology, subliminal persuasion and a little bit of mind reading."What we're really teaching the kids is how to grab life," David said. "Too often we focus on what we say no to; I focus on what we can say yes to."He said that focusing on these positives provides children with goals, drives and desires – motivators that will make them less likely to do drugs."He has a lot of positive life messages," Pindell said, noting David's performance was not limited to a "Just Say No" sound byte. He said it helped the students see how to build character and life success strategies.

Solve for XThe students were not the only ones learning on Tuesday as teachers received a demonstration of a new Common Core math lesson."We really try to have, for all of our field trips and assemblies, an academic element," Pindell said.Before David's performance, the older students took part in an antidrug class, learning about the history of Red Ribbon Week and facts about drug addiction.Embedded within the lesson was a trial run of a Common Core math exercise. The exercise asked students to use statistics of student alcohol abuse in eighth, 10th and 12th grade to determine the percentage of alcohol abuse for college freshmen.Rather than provide the students a formula they could use, the exercise had the class conversing with each other to derive key information from the statistics. Next, the students were asked how they would solve the problem, creating their own steps with the gathered information and their mathematical skill set.Pindell said the Common Core approach highlighted knowledge application rather than rote memorization and that its aim was to connect learning situations to real life.Heather Moyer, principal and superintendent of Little Shasta Elementary, said she felt the exercise moved toward a more kid-centered, rather than teacher-directed, learning experience.Common Core is scheduled to be initiated nationwide during the 2014-15 school year.